Today, the news broke that South Korea’s most enigmatically successful export, horse-dancing rapper/raconteur PSY, has anti-American skeletons in his closet — leading him to issue a statement of apology for two separate incidents during the early 2000s in which he publicly attacked the U.S. and its military policies.

The scandal comes as PSY nears an imminent milestone — the staggering one billionth viewing of the video for his goofy earworm “Gangnam Style” — and as he prepares to perform at a December 21 charity concert in Washington, DC before an audience that is scheduled to include President Obama.

News of the incidents first broke in the form of a posting on CNN’s citizen-journalism platform iReport on October 6. The pseudonymous post, accusing PSY of being “the worst anti-Americanist and opportunist,” went largely ignored, until Bobby McGill, a former San Francisco Chronicle staff writer, picked up the story for an extensive feature in his Busan, South Korea-based English-language magazine, Busan Haps.

According to McGill, the singer’s first anti-American flareup occurred in 2002, shortly after two 13-year-old girls were tragically run over and killed by a U.S. Army vehicle in a rural area north of Seoul. The event led an enraged Korean populace to take to the streets, demanding justice for the girls’ families and a wind-down of U.S. military presence in the nation.

PSY, then 25, was already notorious in the Korean entertainment industry: He’d dropped out of not one but two colleges and both of his albums had been censured by pundits for including “inappropriate” lyrics and serving as “negative influences” on youth. PSY’s shady record, unusual wardrobe choices and on-stage antics had led to his being dubbed the “Bizarre Singer” — essentially, as close to a bad-boy punk as K-Pop gets.

It might not be too surprising, then, that as public outrage intensified, PSY became one of the most vocal and high-profile Korean celebrities to join the protests — strolling onstage for one concert performance holding a large mockup of a tank, which he slammed to the ground and beat to smithereens with his mic stand, as the crowd chanted anti-American slogans.

The second episode occurred two years later, in 2004, during the U.S. occupation of Iraq. In May of that year, a jihadist faction led by al-Qaeda associate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had captured a Christian missionary named Kim Sun-il, holding him hostage and demanding that South Korea withdraw its pledge to send 3,000 troops to Iraq as part of the occupying forces. When the South Korean government refused to negotiate, the terrorists released a tape of Kim’s brutal execution, telling Koreans that they should “blame America” for their countryman’s death.

Once again, South Koreans took to the streets, initially protesting the actions of the extremists, and later, as anti-American activists took control of the mobs, the U.S.-led occupation itself. As Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper reports, during this period, PSY participated in a protest concert, where he joined South Korean rappers JP, Prhyme and MC Sniper in a performance with the hard-rock band N.EX.T, delivering a live rendition of an angry rant titled ”Dear American,” written by N.EX.T.’s lead singer, Shin HaeChul. As has been widely reported, the words from the verse PSY delivers declare that the “f—— Westerner bastards” responsible for the torture of Iraqi POWs should be killed, “slowly and painfully,” along with their families.

Though shockingly over-the-top, the rest of the song, which refers to “naked prisoners of war,” “reality trash porn,” and a “contemporary crisis that has devastated the world, religion and human dignity,” contextualize the verse as part of a bitter commentary on the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib detention facility — a scandal that had just unfurled publicly the month before, and that was widely believed to have provoked al-Zarqawi to begin his campaign of abductions and executions. Meanwhile, the song’s chorus calls for America to “Stop the War!” and “Stop the Crime!” — sentiments that were as common on protest signs in major U.S. cities as in Seoul.

Early this evening, with backlash beginning to rage out of control, PSY released the following public statement:

“As a proud South Korean who was educated in the United States and lived there for a very significant part of my life, I understand the sacrifices American servicemen and women have made to protect freedom and democracy in my country and around the world. The song I featured on in question from eight years ago — was part of a deeply emotional reaction to the war in Iraq and the killing of two Korean schoolgirls that was part of the overall antiwar sentiment shared by others around the world at that time. While I’m grateful for the freedom to express one’s self, I’ve learned there are limits to what language is appropriate and I’m deeply sorry for how these lyrics could be interpreted. I will forever be sorry for any pain I have caused by those words.

“I have been honored to perform in front of American soldiers in recent months — including an appearance on the Jay Leno show specifically for them — and I hope they and all Americans can accept my apology. While it’s important that we express our opinions, I deeply regret the inflammatory and inappropriate language I used to do so. In my music, I try to give people a release, a reason to smile. I have learned that thru music, our universal language we can all come together as a culture of humanity and I hope that you will accept my apology.”

While the entertainer’s indiscretions certainly warranted a response, they can also be seen in the context of his youth and the prevailing sensibilities of the era in which they occurred. This was a period of South Korean history during which 60% of all Koreans and over 70% of Koreans under 25 had an unfavorable opinion of the U.S. (In fact, as the think-tank RAND noted in their 2004 study “Ambivalent Allies?,” young South Korean adults of that time believed that America posed a greater existential threat to their nation and the world than their traditional nemesis to the North.)

Which suggests that, as outrageous as they were, his decade-old actions could be seen by some as a PSY of the times.

About Speakeasy

Speakeasy is a blog covering media, entertainment, celebrity and the arts. The publication is produced by Barbara Chai and Jonathan Welsh with contributions from the Wall Street Journal staff and others. Write to us at speakeasy@wsj.com or follow us on Twitter at @WSJSpeakeasy or individually @barbarachai.